<p>Mumto3: Welcome! Those are fantastic PSAT scores for a sophomore! I don’t know what state you’re in, but if he was a Junior he’d have made the NMSF cutoff for most states. </p>
<p>There are some summer programs that will let you use PSAT scores to qualify for their classes in lieu of SATs or ACTs (I’m thinking of Vanderbilt’s Summer Academy for one) They generally don’t contact you though, so you’re not really missing much by having checked the “no mail” box. If your son has specific academic interests or you’d like to keep him relatively close to home, you can search for summer programs in your area. There’s a thread on summer programs here on CC.</p>
<p>terinzak–my son is a lot like yours but he is mainly interested in art…but also robotics and…well computer science…and interactive art/games…and must see the lunar eclipse and drove hours to get to a blue spot…and stays up all night when they are going to fire up the supercollider in Europe…loves spanish literature …enjoy the ride and tell him to look into Carnegie Mellon…so many cool things and one of the top schools for robotics, game design, art, physics, engineering, music…</p>
<p>Thanks so much! I’ll let him know about Carnegie Mellon Right now he’s got University of Colorado (UCCS), Colorado State University, and University of Utah. That may all change a lot before he’s a senior. We will be visiting UCCS this summer and U of U next month.</p>
<p>Thank you for the warm welcome and information! I will hunt around and see what we can find for a summer program. Part of the problem is narrowing the field of focus, as he is interested in so many things (sounds similar to what others have said about their sophomore sons!). Thanks again!</p>
<p>Good morning all. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and your children were able to get a good break from the stresses of teenage life. It snowed on Christmas Day here, a rare event in these parts! My D heads back to school today to a January filled with makeup exams, book projects, and science fair culminating with semester grade reports at the end of the month. She had to work quite a bit over her break, but was able to get together with friends, play a little tennis when it warmed to 60 degrees this weekend, and start the indoor hockey season. Good luck in the new year and to all heading into exams in January!</p>
<p>Thanks Blueshoe and Happy New Year to you (and everyone) as well. The kids headed back to school today and while I was sorry to see them go (it was a short break for us), I will be glad to get things re-organized and have a little down time.</p>
<p>My D, unlike yours, did not spend much time at all doing anything school related. She finally did yesterday when I told her to. Ugh. I love that girl but she seemed more focused last year than she does this year. She’s still doing fine but by no means as well as she could be. It’s a hard thing to know how much to push. She has a week or two of review and then goes into exams. We’ll see how that goes. </p>
<p>So who is starting to look toward spring break and possible college visits? We are beginning to loosely plan to see some schools in Virginia and possibly NC/SC.</p>
<p>I’m planning to look at a couple of schools with S over spring break - Johns Hopkins and Princeton (will visit DD at Delaware en route). I like to do it in small doses, just two at a time, so it isn’t overwhelming. Not sure Princeton is remotely reachable, but I want him to see an Ivy League school - you never know since he’s only a soph. Maybe it will motivate him more for SAT prep.</p>
<p>I would love to take him to RPI during mid-term week at the end of January (he only has two midterms and will have a few days off after the last one), but that will be dependent on the weather forecast. Not driving up there in the snow!!</p>
<p>We won’t do any college visits this spring but will take advantage of the break to visit relatives abroad. I am thinking, however, of doing some summer visits while classes are in session. As a NoVa family, it makes sense to visit the ones mentioned above–w&m, UVa, Tech but I am t hinking of also seeing some others like Mary Washington, Sweet Briar and Radford, VCU. … so D can see the wide variety of school types–big state, rural, urban, small women’s college…I found that with S the best approach was to go to a variety of school types so he could tell what characteristics were most important…he ended up applying only to one of the schools on his junior year spring break trip but the 6 schools we visited helped him see what was of most interest to him. This scattershot approach to local schools seems more efficient than trying to visit the schools she says is interested in and is unlikely to attend anyway–Stanford, Yale, NYU, Columbia–hopefully she will get a reality check about what is feasible for her and discover that there are lots of colleges/universities where she could be happy and successful.</p>
<p>S doesn’t start school again until Wednesday. But he has All-State choir auditions on Saturday so he has three voice lessons this week, as well as rehearsals for the school musical. Luckily, their semester was over before the break - so no homework. His Christmas break has involved lots of video games and a house full of teenagers. Last night, I finally had had enough and persuaded the gang to move to someone else’s house. I’m really easy going, but even I have my limits. </p>
<p>No real college visits for S over Spring break. But he is planning to go visit his sister at American for a few days. He has no interest in attending there, but at least he’ll get a feel for what college life is like.</p>
<p>Belated welcome Mumto3! What wonderful scores!</p>
<p>vandy - If it makes you feel better, on the way to school this morning after a 2 week break, son said “Hmm, wonder how much homework I forgot.” WHAT! Thought he only had 2 projects and I was all over him about those. “Yeah, I got those done, but they were the only ones I could remember. I’m sure I had stuff in just about all my classes.” He is taking 7 classes. I swear the boy just wants to give me ulcers.</p>
<p>I was planning a spring break college visits, but son doesn’t seem interested enough. We may have use of a condo in Williamsburg over break, so opting for relaxing vaca (or as relaxing as the roller coasters at Busch Gardens gets) vs. college visits.</p>
<p>He is applying to a summer program at UVA. Hoping he gets in so that he can check out the UVA campus.</p>
<p>He did start narrowing down the college list by geographic region - nothing North of our current location, preferably VA down the East Coast, Texas, Colorado, California and Alabama. He’ll only stay in PA if he must due to cost. I’m glad he is finally taking a bit of interest. Not sure how I feel about wiping out “my” dreams of Ivy of New England schools.</p>
<p>Longhsul: If your S is ever ready for info on any Texas schools - let me know. We investigated them all for our D and she has friends in most of the bigger (ie. well known) ones.</p>
<p>Hi All! D’13 still has off today; school resumes tomorrow. I had banned her from doing AP Euro homework until after New Year’s. She ended up with a happy surprise yesterday when her assignment only took her 2 hours (she anticipated 7.) She has an essay to finish today but it’s timed for an hour. Semester 2 starts tomorrow and she has one less academic class which means she’ll have a study hall. Yay! </p>
<p>YDS: I’m with you; I really don’t want to do visits yet, but we’ll probably do an odd one or two over spring break since we have no real plans, and since we’ll have to take her sister back from her SB when D’13’s begins.</p>
<p>DW will take D2 on a week-long tour of New England colleges, mostly LACs, over spring break. She’s very excited about it. We toured a few colleges in the summer after dropping D1 at college for her freshman year. Not every kid is ready to tour colleges as a HS sophomore, but if they are ready, I see no harm in it. In fact, I think both of our daughters came back from early college tours with an extra boost of motivation to do well in their HS studies. If the kid is into it, the trip is also a great opportunity for bonding and meaningful parent-kid discussion about academic interests and college preferences (large v. small, urban/suburban/rural, geographic preferences, etc, more so than specific colleges because it’s far to early to tell what the kid’s stats are ultimately going to look like). This can and probably will change over time, but I think early engagement on these questions, and developing a common vocabulary and habits of dialog, are good things.</p>
<p>I wish I had thought about college visits earlier; I would have chosen to take my D (now a senior) to a state to which she’s never been as part of a vacation and include a college visit in the plans. It would have made the “Why college X” essay a lot easier to write.</p>
<p>My poor son (now a sophomore; the reason I’m on this thread) got dragged along to five college visits. He hated most. That’s okay; we now know he wants a defined campus in a warm climate.</p>
<p>Feel free to share all info with me re TX schools! He is casually interested in Trinty. I think if he combed through Rice info he may like it, but I don’t want to suggest it until I look at the financial end.</p>
<p>I had a major meltdown yesterday over trying to finance college. I wanted to keep data on schools I thought may interest him. Taking the sage advice of building the list from the bottom up I freaked out because I can’t find any financial safeties. Our state schools have 4yr grad rates of 35%. The Honors Colleges have SAT rates close to what he scored in 7th grade. </p>
<p>Schokolade – I’m hoping to get to visit California as part of the college visits for the selfish reason I’ve never been there.</p>
<p>We probably should start looking at colleges, but after going thru it twice I am just not ready to start again yet. We had the co-eds home for break and although I enjoyed having them, I will also enjoy it when they are both gone. One left yesterday and the other goes back in 2 weeks. S’13 really wants a PS3 and Black Ops Call of Duty (?) so, although I am not one to bribe, I did say that if he got a 4 or 5 on his AP World test I would buy him one. I am hoping this gives him an incentive to kick the studying up a notch.</p>
Right now he’s got University of Colorado (UCCS), Colorado State University, and University of Utah. That may all change a lot before he’s a senior. We will be visiting UCCS this summer and U of U next month.</p>